Context

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) uses intelligent cameras that recognize license plates. The system then compares these scanned license plates with already available data (stolen or reported vehicles, whether or not they are allowed to drive in certain areas, etc.). Within the police, ANPR is used in the context of road safety and judicial assignments.

The ANPR project is housed within the Directorate of Police Information and ICT (DRI) of the Federal Police. The directorate is responsible for preparing policy and rules for information management and processing, developing the police information concept, establishing technical norms and standards, and implementing information and communication systems.

Within the ANPR ecosystem of the Federal Police, several themes have been identified to maximize operational effectiveness. An important theme is intervention, which focuses on the deployment of ANPR technology to support interventions in the field. This is enabled by generating hits through the ANPR system, which are then managed by specialized services within the police to determine and prioritize actions in the field, allowing the police to respond more quickly and with more focus to urgent situations. To effectively support these tasks, significant improvements to the IT landscape are required. These include the development of new central IT components designed to strengthen the operational capabilities of the entire Integrated Police (GPI).

FEBLAM, a new component within the ANPR ecosystem of the Federal Police, will focus on the optimization and centralization of hit generation at the national level, by flexibly integrating data from various sources.

Hit Gateway will be responsible for centralizing and facilitating the management of “hits” across the various systems of the integrated police and its partners.

Role: Software Engineer (senior)

As a senior software engineer within the ANPR team at DRI, you are responsible for developing, (co-)developing, designing, and supporting the integration of ANPR-related software products as software applications, ensuring seamless integration between front-end and back-end systems. As a software engineer, you are expected to work independently on tasks while closely collaborating with other members of the development team, the project manager, and the functional analyst to achieve the project objectives for FEBLAM and other intervention themes.

You have strong technical insight and take on a motivating, advisory, and facilitating role towards colleague engineers and developers.

Code is expected in PHP/Typescript. Participation in creating DEVSECOPS pipelines is expected for all phases of applications involved in all environments (DEV/TST/ACC/OPS/TRG), but this is not, in principle, a responsibility of the software developer.

Tasks and responsibilities:

Main tasks:

• Full Stack Development: building and maintaining robust, scalable web applications with modern front-end and back-end technologies. Developing and maintaining end-to-end features for ANPR applications — from front-end UI to back-end services and data processing.
• Reading/understanding functional analysis documentation to implement it at code level
• Technical implementation: Writing “clean”, efficient, and maintainable code, adhering to best practices. Compliance with clean code and continuous refactoring. Working with RESTful APIs, messaging systems, and on-premise/hybrid cloud services to connect components of the ANPR ecosystem. Assisting in creating prototypes for proof-of-concept implementations and quickly iterating based on feedback from partners.
• Collaboration: collaborating with product managers, designers, technical engineers, and QA engineers to deliver user-friendly and powerful software. This involves working with vendors and integrators who directly own software components whose codebase is not directly available internally. Collaborating with various teams, including hardware, AI/ML, and UX, to deliver seamless, powerful ANPR solutions.
• Co-creation: actively participating in co-creation workshops with external ISVs and internal technical departments working together on integrations, APIs, and real-time data pipelines.
• Code review: participating in peer code reviews, providing constructive feedback, and ensuring code quality.

Education, experience, and competencies:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, IT, computer science.
• At least 10 years of professional experience in full-stack software development.
• Languages and frameworks: front-end coding in JavaScript/Typescript and back-end, including frameworks such as PHP. Any strong experience with similar microframeworks (e.g. Lumen, Silex) is a significant distinguishing factor.
• Experience with stacked services or cloud platforms according to industry standards is a plus.
• Demonstrable experience with PHP frameworks and PHP codebases in general, especially for backend scenarios. Experience with PHP frameworks (e.g. Laravel) is a plus.
• Familiarity with version control systems (Git, GitLab).
• Database management: demonstrable experience with PGSQL is required. Experience with both relational (e.g. PostgreSQL, MySQL) and non-relational databases (e.g. MongoDB) is welcome. Experience with document-oriented OpenSearch or ELK stack is highly valued.
• Strong knowledge of Linux-based environments and shell scripting. Knowledge of Agile development methodologies, coding sprints.
• Familiarity with robot frameworks.
• Understanding of security best practices in development, both front-end and back-end. Practical knowledge of JWT, OAuth2, or other modern authentication mechanisms.
• API development: some experience in designing and using RESTful APIs and/or GraphQL.
• Demonstrable experience in brokering and queuing: demonstrable experience with tools such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, etc.
• Cloud services: proven stacked service wrapping is important for the success of the development and integration side of the project.
• DevOps basics: perfect understanding of CI/CD/CT pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins, etc.). Advanced Linux shell scripting and deployment-level scripting is desired for software implementation and integration support, as well as containerized application development.
• Orchestration: A basic knowledge of orchestration via OpenShift by RedHat, Nutanix, or HashiCorp is a major plus.
• MSE (Modeling / Simulation / Emulation): Participation in LAB activities is essential to create apps suitable for the intended purpose, as well as onboarding the right apps. In this respect, the software engineer is expected to participate in coding sessions for traffic modeling and simulating specific loads on the ecosystem and simulating user stories, (re)play sessions, and application stress tests.
• Experience with Agile and traditional project methodologies; familiarity with JIRA and Confluence is a plus.
• Punctual and result-oriented working.
• Good communication skills and a team player.
• Strong command of French and Dutch and the ability to code in English.

Practical:

• Desired start date: 15 November 2025
• Duration: until end of 2025 (extendable)
• Regime: full-time
• Main address: Koningsstraat, 202 A – 1000 Brussels
• Work arrangement: minimum 2 days/week presence at the office, depending on tasks and team agreements; telework allowed at domicile or employer address (Belgium)
• Team: multidisciplinary, mix of internal and external staff